


In Memoriam

by Myrime



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Iron Dad, Iron Family, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Lives, iron man bingo 3000, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 14:56:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19871491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: After the war with Thanos is over, Peter goes to talk to Tony Stark's headstone, trying to make sense of the guilt he feels. He doesn't exactly think he'll find answers there, but he has to try. Luckily, he's not alone.





	In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> Another entry for the [Iron Man Bingo 2019 Round 2](https://iron-man-bingo.tumblr.com/), square: post!Endgame Peter & Tony.  
> Enjoy!

It is quiet in the cemetery. Peter is the only person there when he sits down on the cold ground in front of the veritable sea of flowers in front of Tony Stark’s headstone. It has been months since the reverse of the snap and still people are coming to leave flowers and their thanks. Peter has waited until dark before he went in. He is not comfortable with other people witnessing his grief.

Underneath his clothes, he is wearing the Spider-Man suit since he has come directly after patrol, but he is here as Peter Parker.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter greets and falls silent again.

He comes here too often, several people have told him that. May is worrying about him, of course, but his friends too, Ned and MJ who have lost five years too but appear to be dealing much better than him. Sometimes, he feels lost among them.

Peter does not have much to say tonight. The city is quiet, too quiet almost. The first outbreak of chaos after the miraculous return of all the Vanished has died down, and few people seem up to causing trouble again already. That should make it easier, transitioning back into life and a world that moved on without him.

It does not. Spider-Man has been Peter’s way to cope with everything fate has thrown at him. Swinging through calm streets has quickly lost its charm – although Peter feels guilty for even thinking that.

“Morgan asked me again to take her flying,” he says quietly, with a smile. “We should have known that Pepper would not be enough to teach your daughter common sense.”

Morgan is a gift. He has never exactly wanted siblings, but now he is glad to have her. Although it still feels strange to hear her call him big brother. It poses a constant struggle to do right by her.

“One of these days, she is not going to accept my deflections anymore.”

Taking a deep breath, Peter wonders how to continue. It usually helps, coming here, but he cannot explain the hollow feeling constantly spreading in his chest even to himself. He should be glad to be alive, and yet it always feels like something is missing.

“I still don’t sleep,” Peter admits but shrugs right away.

It is a stupid concern, because he does not _need_ much sleep. And while he does not exactly have nightmares of wherever they went after the Snap, he is left with that _feeling_ he cannot shake.

“I –”

“You should stop speaking to headstones,” a voice behind him speaks up, causing Peter to whirl around although he would recognize it anywhere.

“It’s _your_ headstone,” Peter mutters as he takes in Tony Stark, standing before him with a hat that does not disguise him at all. At least he left the sunglasses off. Over the past months, they have learned how not to draw attention.

Tony should not be here. He rarely leaves the lake house, but sometimes he is reckless enough to wander right through the heart of New York. Pepper thinks he has not understood the magnitude of his increased celebrity status. People might have always known his face, even before he became Iron Man. Now, however, their entire universe has declared him its hero. Tony still expects it to die down soon, to watch the shrines disappear and the artists to move on to other motifs.

Surviving openly might have been less of a hassle after all, but Peter does not think that Tony regrets the decision of staying dead to the public. He _did_ die. They just did everything in their power to bring him back – and succeeded.

“That makes it worse, kid,” Tony argues in a soft tone. “Don’t talk to headstones of people who are still alive.”

Few people know, mostly family. Tony was very adamant about leaving the Avengers out of it. He wants to spend the rest of his life watching his daughter grow up, not to be dragged back into the next war that is surely coming for them. Earth has enough heroes to defend her these days. And if he is needed anyway, he can still make a miraculous reappearance.

“It’s easier sometimes,” Peter answers without thinking. He winces when he sees the shadows on Tony’s face deepen.

“I’m here.”

The thing is, Peter is glad that Tony is still alive, but it is sometimes hard to navigate both worlds, to grieve the man he has come to see as a father figure only to go visit him on the weekends and see that he is fine.

Even while their relationship has grown much deeper since they killed Thanos, it has also become less simple. Being mentored by Mr. Stark and occasionally fighting crime with him had felt like the best thing that ever happened to Peter. There had still been a distance between them that neither of them tried to overcome. That distance is gone now.

The dinner table at the lake house always has a place prepared for him, he has his own bedroom there, Morgan calls him brother. Peter is getting another shot at a family that he is not sure he deserves.

Turning back to the headstone, Peter says, “You were dead, though. Several times.”

Peter was, too, for five long years. They do not talk about this, though, because Tony always gets very quiet at the mere mention of the Snap.

Footsteps sound and then Tony sits down next to him, reaching out to pluck some of the flowers out of the bouquets.

“It seems like I have to talk to Helen about doctor-patient-confidentiality,” he sounds amused, and if Peter had not seen how utterly happy Tony had been when he embraced his daughter after he first woke up, he might get angry about the nonchalance in Tony’s voice when he talks about his own death.

“She kinda just yelled it at us so we would stop bothering her with question,” Peter explains, not looking up at Tony.

He remembers the long days in the private hospital, where they used all the strange forces available to them to save Tony’s life. Sometimes, it feels like the exhaustion of that time has still not faded entirely. Then again, Peter had stumbled from one life-or-death battle into the next, not knowing that five years had passed.

“Don’t look like I was going to chop her head off for this,” Tony chides, humour in his tone. Growing more serious, he adds, “You don’t have to be ready to save everyone at all times.”

And yet that is what Tony has always done. Even presumed dead, he still spends a lot of time creating things to shape the future because he is not yet done with the world. Peter does not say any of that, however.

Instead, he shrugs, feeling more miserable by the minute. “Because I have such a good track record with that.”

The atmosphere shifts immediately, grows tense. Peter feels Tony’s sharp gaze on him. “What was that, kid? Peter?” Tony demands. The immediate concern in his tone just makes Peter feel worse. “Look at me.”

It takes Peter a minute, but he finally forces his head to turn and to meet Tony’s eyes. Then, Tony says the worst thing he could have.

“It is not your fault.”

Peter _knows_ that. From an objective point of view, he realizes that he had nothing to do with Thanos coming for them or them not being strong enough. He definitely did not choose to die in the Snap. Afterwards, though, his ghost lingered and made Tony sacrifice himself. Peter was not the only reason but a major one. He has been piecing the clues together for these past months. 

“I couldn’t help you when it mattered,” Peter says, aiming for a casual tone and failing.

He is not quite sure whether he means on Titan, when they almost managed to pull the glove off Thanos’ hand, or later on Earth when he could not get the gauntlet off the battlefield, when he had to watch Tony wield the Stones and die because of it.

“But you did,” Tony says without a single trace of doubt. “You were here. You looked after my wife and daughter. You helped them even though you had just been through two very large battles and had your own family to go home to after spending five years in between lives.” Tony makes a short pause, swallows as he traces the inscription on his headstone. “You did more than I could ever thank you for.”

Biting down hard on the inside of his cheek, Peter just barely keeps from wincing. He does not need Tony’s gratitude. He just wants the thoughts in his head and the feelings in his chest to make sense. He wants to go back to living without imagining how much worse things could have been.

“There would’ve been no need for that if you –” Peter trails off miserably.

“What?” Tony asks sharply. “If I had not gone to fight Thanos? If I had not taken our one chance at reversing the Snap at bringing everyone back? At bringing _you_ back?”

There it is. It is not anger turning Tony’s voice sharp but grief. Those last bits of it that will likely linger forever inside them. Grief for Peter.

“Listen, Peter,” Tony continues urgently and reaches out to put a hand on Peter’s arm as to convince them that they are both real, both here, together. “Doing nothing was never an option at all. If I had to do it again, without a chance of another miraculous survival, I would do it without hesitation.”

That is the worst thing, Peter thinks. He knows Tony would do that. At the same time, he fears he would not be strong enough to save Tony. _Again_.

“What about your family?” Peter asks quietly.

What he means is more complicated than that. They have signed up to protect others, but Peter knows both sides of this now. He knows about leaving and being left. He wonders whether there is a line they will not cross, a safe place they can keep for himself – even knowing he is selfish.

“You are family,” Tony answers without hesitation.

It is not the answer Peter was looking for, but it has warmth spreading through his chest nevertheless.

“I’m sorry, anyway,” he says quietly.

With a laugh, Tony takes his hand off Peter’s arm and goes back to taking apart flowers. It is the surest sign he is nervous too. “I’d be surprised if you had seen reason after just one conversation.”

To Peter, it has not been the first one. Normally, Tony’s headstone does not answer, though. He is not yet sure whether he does not prefer that. It is stupid to wallow in his guilt, but he cannot just let go of it either.

When Peter merely shrugs, Tony adds, “I know this will take time, but we’ve got that now. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. For dragging you into this mess. For not taking enough care. For letting you be taken.”

Upset, Peter glares at Tony. “None of that was your fault.”

He notices the trap he has fallen into far too late, but keeps his expression determined.

“Hypocrisy is not a virtue, kid,” Tony says, his voice lighter again. “We’ll keep working on that.”

Time, Peter thinks, is a strange thing, just like hope. Without warning, they can lose or win it, just toys in fate’s perpetual storm.

Humming noncommittally, Peter fights the urge to reach for some flowers of his own.

“Now, how about dinner?” Tony offers, a question ringing beneath the words that is about more than food. “I could need some help tinkering with the arm. It’s lagging.”

Peter doubts that very much. Nothing Tony builds does not work the way he intends it to. The prosthesis he built to replace the arm the Stones took from him, is a masterpiece. Much more sophisticated than Barnes’. Peter loves it, even though it is a constant reminder of what happened.

There is always room for improvement, but Tony would not walk around with an arm that defies its purpose. As far as distractions go, Peter is glad for that one, though. Working in the lab together is the one thing that has not changed. They have always been more familiar in the workshop than anywhere else.

With a last glance at the headstone, Peter gets to his feet. Slowly, he is coming to realize that he is not going to get the answers he needs here. Questions about life are better off answered by the living.

He offers a hand to Tony and says, “I’m ready.”

With a smile, Tony lets himself be pulled up, then puts his arm around Peter’s shoulder as they walk towards the car.

“Then let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.   
> I still have a lot of feelings about Endgame and FFH didn't exactly help with that. Where are Peter's mom heroes when he needs them?


End file.
